


The Call

by Leni



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold in the Dark Castle, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: Summoning rituals hadn't yanked at his will with such strength.He would have needed to be made of stone, to ignore Belle's call.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "I know your secret."

The candle at her bedside flared to life, but if he had expected Belle to be surprised by the spell, he was to be disappointed. Her eyes turned to him, drowsy at first and then taking on a savage delight as she took him in.

"You came," she whispered.

Rumpelstiltskin thought of the summons he hadn't been able to ignore anymore. Thought of the way the silk sheets covered her, how they had been in lovely disarray when he arrived, giving him a fine view of her bare legs, a shadow of her belly and a peek of nipples before he had to raise his eyes to the more familiar expanse of skin above her chest. "You called."

"Oh?"

Belle sat up with a languorous movement. Her hand came up to secure the sheet against her breast, an attempt at modesty that was completely ruined by the sticky wetness glistening over her fingers.

His eyes followed the messy line she drew on the white silk, a sudden hunger flickering at the knowledge that Belle wasn't even trying to hide. He imagined himself stepping closer. Sitting at the edge of her bed. Taking her wrist and bringing her hand to his lips, running his tongue over her knuckles. Knowing the taste of her at last.

Belle met his eye, an invitation and a challenge in her gaze. "You don't always come at the sound of your name."

She wasn't even denying it.

He still remembered the sound of her mournful cries after her arrival, always with a vague feeling of guilt and shame to have mocked her suffering. Now it was she who was mocking him. Her moans. Her whispers. The choked sobs as she whimpered in release. The sounds that had invaded his nights for weeks already, cutting through the blank void of his solitude at the wheel if he was spinning, and stealing into his dreams if he dared to sleep.

Night after night, and then to see Belle during the day, all kindness and sweet words, keeping him company if he was in a good mood, drawing a smile out of him if he was not. Belle had become his friend, and Rumpelstiltskin now prided himself on his ability to make her eyes lighten with curiosity at his story-telling, and how easy it had become to make her laugh once he'd discovered his sense of humor didn't repel her.

What she did behind the door of her quarters was none of his business.

Or it wouldn't have been, if wind and magic didn't conspire to keep him abreast of each night's foray of her fingers between her thighs.

For weeks Rumpelstiltskin had gifted her with the illusion of privacy, in exchange for that friendship. Had asked no questions, made no comments. Hadn't even thought of teasing her for her lustfulness.

Instead he had chosen to travel, long and far away. To try and forget what he'd heard. To steel his imagination against picturing Belle in her bedroom, writhing on the mattress as she touched herself.

She paid him back by muttering his name in breathy whispers on the night of his return.

Once, it had shocked him into staggering away from his wheel.

The second time, Rumpelstiltskin had looked up at the ceiling, as if the gods he did not believe in would explain the impossible girl he'd taken under his roof.

The third time...

The stuttered syllables of his ridiculously long name. Drawn out and hissed out in a long breath, the little scream that had cut through the word.

Summoning rituals hadn't yanked at his will with such strength.

He would have needed to be made of stone, to ignore Belle's call.

"It's my castle, dearie," he said now, willing his eyes to remain on her face and knowing by her smile that his struggle was visible. "I always know when someone calls my name within these walls."

Belle tilted her head. "But you don't always answer, do you?"

Hundreds of times she had called his name and Rumpelstiltskin had not even considered to come to her. Sometimes just to annoy her; more often because he did have tasks more important to attend to than the whims of his maid.

Rumpelstiltskin looked away.

There was the swish of cloth, the groan of the mattress as Belle moved. When Rumpelstiltskin turned his gaze back to her, she was shifting to put her feet on the thick carpet that covered her bedroom floor and pushing herself to stand next to the bed.

His eyes drank on the play of the shadows on her bare shoulders. Her pale skin, so inviting without the sleeves of her white blouses and the bright blue straps of her dress. He wouldn't have stolen a longer look, but even the undeserving knew when they were allowed a forbidden privilege. He imagined the shape of her burned into his brain, the distinct lines of her body that weren't hidden by the sheet around her.

She moved first. Stepped forward. The flush of her cheeks betrayed her recent pleasures, but it was the vulnerability in her eyes that rooted Rumpelstiltskin to the spot.

No one ever let their guard down around the Dark One.

Rumpelstiltskin wet his lips.

"Three times, I've called you tonight."

"I know," he breathed.

"You could have come to me the first time-"

"I thought it was a mistake."

"-or the second time."

"I never imagined you meant it!"

"But you chose a third time, Rumpelstiltskin." Belle advanced toward him. “Don’t you know that three is a magical number?”

One step, and he could remember a dozen small moments of intimacy: a hug, a touch, a shared laugh. Another, and he could remember their hours spent in conversation; sometimes a simple good morning when passing each other in the hallways, sometimes the lazy exchange of ideas and theories as candles burned around them in the library and finally only the sunrise chased them back to their respective rooms.

When Belle stood before him, Rumpelstiltskin could only remember that this was the woman who'd chosen to stay.

"Why do you do this?" he had to ask.

Her answer was a small smile. "I'll give you three guesses," she told him, "but you must hold my hand."

He curled his hands into fists.

Belle chuckled. "Or I'll hold yours."

In reaching out for his wrist, she let go of her hold on the sheet covering her.

Rumpelstiltskin followed its fall to the carpet, drinking in every inch of skin it raced to reveal. "You can't," he said, sounding hoarse to his own ears.

"Can't what?" she asked, sounding amused, sounding too patient. Sounding like this was the most reasonable moment of her life while Rumpelstiltskin would bet all his gold that it was a hallucination. "Can't touch you?" She raised his wrist at the same time she stepped even closer, then directed his hand to rest against her shoulder, drawing it upwards to caress the curve of her neck and then downwards to cover her chest. "Can't want you to touch me?"

Her heartbeat accelerated under his palm, but Belle didn't hesitate to lead him into cupping her right breast.

"I can," she whispered. "I _do_."

Rumpelstiltskin licked his lips. Watched in amazement as his thumb relinquished all contact with his brain and explored the texture of her skin, the border where milk and cream darkened into rosy tips, the weight of her nipple as he flicked it.

Her low moan brought him back to his senses. "I can't!"

"Liar," she said, laughing a little. At his expression, she looked down to where his left hand had already possessed itself of her waist. Rumpelstiltskin wondered at this rebellion of his limbs, what this girl had done to stage such upheaval after centuries of accord between his thoughts and his deeds.

"Liar," Belle repeated more softly, as if his lies were the sweetest words she'd heard. "One last guess, Rumpelstiltskin."

He said nothing.

He couldn't promise to love her, not when love could swallow his power and leave him helpless before he'd found his son. He couldn't promise to cherish her, not when his focus had to be on the coming of the World Without Magic. He couldn't even promise to stay, not in this world or in the next one, when he didn't know where his search for Baelfire would take him.

He couldn't let go either, and so he chose silence and hoped Belle would desist first.

Foolish hope.

"It's okay," Belle said.

The words contained all the patience of the world. They also were heavy with her stubbornness, a chain she pulled around the two of them, as strong as the deal they'd made at the start.

"Don't say it if you don't wish to." She leaned against him, cheek against his chest, arms draped around his still form. His hands dropped in unison to her hips, holding her close, the rebellion now a systematic revolution. Her voice armed it against reason or sense, built walls where his grasp of the future should have broken in. "It's okay," she repeated. "I know your secret already, Rumpelstiltskin."

"What secret?" he rasped out, fearing the worst.

But her smile spoke only of this moment, of the possibilities between the two of them, and nothing of the world outside and the curse that would devour it.

Her mind obviously fixed on more pleasant thoughts, Belle kissed the skin above his collar. "You never deny me anything if I ask nicely."

Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes in response. "Is that right?" he tried, desperately, too aware that it wasn't a denial.

Belle grinned.

Her lips touched his chin.

Her tongue ran a straight path along his jawline.

There was a naked girl in his arms, and she was rising on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "Take me to bed, Rumple. _Please_."

The graze of her teeth against his earlobe wasn't nice at all, but Rumpelstiltskin still laughed because she'd been right.

He couldn't say no to that.

The End  
04/02/17

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!
> 
> Love your author, leave a comment!


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